1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to asynchronous processing. In particular, the present invention is related to recovering an asynchronous process.
2. Background
Certain online advertisement (“ad”) networks enable online ads to be served to users visiting the Web sites of publishers that are participating in the online ad network. Advertisers generate the online ads and buy placements (a.k.a. inventory) for those ads on the publishers' Web sites usually based on the anticipated audiences for those sites. A placement represents a publisher's agreement to serve a trafficked (i.e., specified) ad to users when the users visit the publisher's site.
The publisher often includes a link to the trafficked ad in one or more Web pages of its Web site. When a user's Web browser loads a Web page that includes the link, the link is executed, which causes an ad call (also referred to as an impression call) to be placed to an ad server that stores the trafficked ad. Upon receiving the ad call, the ad server serves the ad to the user in fulfillment of the purchased placement. The trafficked ad typically is served contemporaneously with other content associated with the publisher's site.
Advertisers may upload creative assets to an asset processing system within an online ad network for inclusion in online ads that are served to users. A creative asset is well known in the relevant art(s) to be a media component of an online ad. For example, the creative asset may be an audio component, an image component, and/or a video component of an online ad. Some types of creative assets are processed before being included in the online ads. Video files, for example, are often encoded into a designated format, so that they can be played on the Web pages on which they are served. An error may occur during processing of the creative assets for any of a variety of reasons. In such instances, it may be desirable to recover the process. The recovery technique should be efficient and avoid consuming substantial bandwidth and/or resources of the online ad network.
Thus, systems, methods, and computer program products are needed that are capable of recovering a process, such as an asynchronously-executed creative asset processing job, in an efficient manner.